Friday, July 15, 2016

My brush with the music publishing industry

It would probably come as a surprise to most people to
discover that the song Happy Birthday
was not, until recently, public property – not in the United States, at least.

As well as being reputedly the most recognised song in the
English language, Happy Birthday is
claimed to be one of the most profitable songs ever written, with estimated
earnings of $US50 million. Not bad for a simple tune whose composers appear to
have made no money from it.

According to Wikipedia, the tune was composed by American
sisters Patty and Mildred Hill in 1893, but they never claimed copyright. The Happy Birthday lyrics first appeared in
print in 1912 and copyright was eventually registered in 1935 by someone unconnected
with the Hill sisters.

Since then the music publishing firm that owns the rights –
initially an outfit called the Summy Company, but since 1988 Warner/Chappell Music
– has clipped the ticket every time Happy
Birthday was performed in public.

Not a bad little earner, by any measurement. The music
publishers just sat back and watched the money come in.

The only effort expended would have been in enforcing their
rights. You can bet they would have come down heavily on anyone who dared
perform Happy Birthday in public
without coughing up. Music publishers have a justified reputation for
defending their interests ferociously.

But I’m pleased to report this racket has finally been brought
to a halt. The makers of a TV documentary about the song sued Warner/Chappell for
falsely claiming copyright and won the case.

I felt a slight tingle of pleasure when I read about the
resolution of the Happy Birthday dispute,
because I recently had my own little brush with the music publishing industry.

My book A Road Tour of
American Song Titles: From Mendocino to Memphis is being launched this
week. In it, I visit 24 American towns and cities that are named in the titles
of hit songs (By the Time I Get to
Phoenix, Is This the Way to Amarillo,
Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa – you get the drift).

I write about the towns and about the songs they inspired –
who wrote them, who sang them, how well they did in the charts, that sort of
thing.

It was always my intention to quote some of the song lyrics.
Ha! More fool me. I didn’t allow for the hard-nosed nature of the music
copyright business and I certainly didn’t allow for the fees demanded by music
publishers.

The companies I dealt with were courteous and obliging, but
it soon became clear that I was navigating a minefield.

In some cases, ownership of the songs was disputed and I was
warned I would risk dire consequences by quoting as much as a line of the
lyrics. In other instances, ownership was shared between multiple companies
claiming varying percentages of any royalties, and the process of obtaining
permission seemed hellishly complicated.

Even where ownership of songs was straightforward and
permission from the publishers would have been forthcoming, their exorbitant royalty
demands ruled out quoting any of the lyrics. This applied even if I wanted to
quote only a few words.

And the more books I sold, the more money I would have to
pay. The music publishers would probably have made more from the book than I
would.

Yes, I could have risked quoting the lyrics anyway, but song
publishers have a history of mercilessly pursuing transgressors.

The irony is that anyone can go online and find the lyrics
of these songs within seconds without paying a cent. But the moment you put
them in a book you become an identifiable target. If you haven’t paid up, the
publishers are likely to come after you.

That my book is a celebration of the songs, and might even
revive interest in some that were in danger of being forgotten (like Saginaw, Michigan), didn’t seem to count
in my favour. It’s all about the “ka-ching!” of the cash register.

In the end I agreed to pay for the right to quote one line
from one song – a Creedence Clearwater Revival song about the city of Lodi,
California. The chapter about Lodi hinged on that one line and would have made
no sense without it.

For the rest, I suggested to my readers that they look the
lyrics up online. In any case, many of the songs will be familiar to most pop
fans of a certain age.

Even with Lodi, there
was more to it than simply paying up. The music publishers insisted on vetting the
relevant pages of my manuscript and demanded three free copies of the book
which I imagine will never be opened, still less read.

The whole experience left me with a sour taste. It doesn't seem right that wonderful, timeless songs should end up in the hands of grasping corporates that contribute nothing to the creative process and measure the worth of everything in terms of the dollars generated. But there it is.

About Me

I am a freelance journalist and columnist living in the Wairarapa region of New Zealand. In the presence of Greenies I like to boast that I walk to work each day - I've paced it out and it's about 15 metres. I write about all sorts of stuff: politics, the media, music, wine, films, cycling and anything else that piques my interest - even sport, though I admit I don't have the intuitive understanding of sport that most New Zealand males absorb as if by osmosis. I'm a former musician (bass and guitar) with a lifelong love of music that led me to write my book 'A Road Tour of American Song Titles: From Mendocino to Memphis', published by Bateman NZ in July 2016. I've been in journalism for more than 40 years and like many journalists I know a little bit about a lot of things and probably not enough about anything. I have never won any journalism awards.